theHotstar

To walk through an art gallery is to walk through the inside of a publicly subsidised bank vault. On the walls are festooned the accounts held by oligarchs in abstract sums, and such a display derives for them rent. This doesn’t deride the intangible aspect of art, which may well be worth the fee paid to seek it up close in an aura of its own historicity. But the tangible function of it, of its galleries, operate substantively no different than banks. That is, a depositor deposits art within a gallery, which keeps it safe while paying an interest to hold it, so it can be rented it out on a broader capacity to the general public. In other instances this art is donated for a fixed term and used to write off an appraised value in tax.

For this reason the arts industry is laden with a cultural legacy of old money financial dynasties, whose estates have ‘dissipated’ into more abstract, secure, beautiful, and scarce storages of value ever since paper currency was cut loose from its golden cinder-block almost a century ago.
In fact, the Jeffrey Epstein ‘scandal’, as the public have been introduced to it, began at the New York Academy of Arts where Eileen Guggenheim made the introduction between him and the first victim to go public, Maria Farmer.

The Guggenheim family is one in a collection of German Jewish origin inter linked through a series of marriages to the most prominent, Rothschild, which has strong historic ties to the House of Windsor through the Austrian House of Habsburg, specifically that of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha.
Eileen Guggenheim had been a private secretary to Charles, Prince of Wales, before she moved on into a number of influential positions within various NY institutions during the 90s, one of which was the New York Academy of Arts.¹

Interestingly, a ‘Charles’ appears in the flight logs in April 1999 alongside an ‘AP’; initials for which there remains some confusion over whether they were attributed to Prince Andrew or Epstein’s private chef, Adam Lang. ²

The New York Academy of Arts had actually been co-founded by Andy Worhol, a famous stencil artist and pioneer in the commodification of artwork. He was a prime mover behind a trend which saw the quality of art supplemented with the persona of its artist. Instead of artists living in the shadows of their creations, their creations became relegated to the periphery of the spotlight they sought. They came to think of themselves as ‘the art’ itself and a new kind of narcissism developed in the form of performance artists such as Marina Abramović. For more on her, follow the little green frogs down the rabbit hole.

What artists began to produce became nothing more than a signature, a sign post they’d piss on. This isn’t an exaggeration. Warhol could’ve walked up to a blank canvas during a gallery event in the 80s, pissed on it and bidding war would’ve broken out. The denial of this trend is a contention that such artwork is self-referential or meta-cultural, meaning it isn’t meant to be good as it is a tacit critique of that which isn’t good, thus making it good because it is opposing that which is bad. But the irony of ironic art is that its substance is just as dogshit as its form. There’s nothing there. What it supposedly condemns, is exactly what it creates. Which is an uninspired culture condemning itself as a means for it to reproduce. It does not attempt to change culture, as it relies on a culture it is able to mock.

The New York Academy of Arts was founded on this vapid culture of value creation. And since talent took a backseat to fame, those running the shows, literally, could exchange fame to satisfy other appetites. For if the art doesn’t matter so much as its authorship, why wouldn’t talent scouts like Eileen Guggenheim pick out young, pretty, and financially insecure girls trying to make their dreams come true. A dynamic found in hollywood and high fashion too. . .
Want to be a thought-provoking artist? Want to be a standard of beauty? So ya wanna be a star kid? Talent isn’t the only thing scouted when the value of commodities produced are abstract. And because of this, a powerful class of people have figured out how to remain sexually active with each new generation well into retirement.

Anyway, the era of Warhol is over and he was replaced with Banksy. Let’s do a Banksy right now:
1) Take the classical scene and imagery of a monarch’s coronation.
2) Change the setting from a Church to a bank and give the clergy suits.
3) Change the monarch to an unpopular politician, such as Boris Johnson.
4) Make a stencil of this and spray it on a piece of public facing private property that is both provocative in fixture while detachable from the structure it is apart, as to be easily segmented and sold at auction.

If such a thing were to be spray painted somewhere within the City of London, that would be a Banksy. The only reason it wouldn’t be a Bansky, would be if he wouldn’t sign it. If he did sign it, no one would question it. How would you get it signed? You would go here. Thus, Banksy’s art work is really just his signature. He is a stray dog with golden piss, but who is he lifting his leg for?

Forgive the scatter brain math, but it works in this instance: Banksy → Yskanb → Y skanb → Y? Banks!

The two largest auction houses are Christies and Sotheby’s. These are old money institutions used to control new money. We'll use Bill Gates as an example of new money being controlled by this system.

Gates is in a unique position financially. Bezos is the only other one that comes to mind. Musk would be in this category too, but is still well within his entrepreneurial phase, and I suspect Tesla is somewhat of a ponzi scheme, meaning Musk may share a similar fate to that of Ivar Kreuger, though that's a digression. These three captains of industry can be used to personify the three stages of new money:

1) Musk. An entrepreneur building up a monopolistic corporation and becoming wealthy through its stock.
2) Bezos. An entrepreneur who has built up a monopolistic corporation and handed control of it over to index linked mutual funds and has begun a transition into ‘philanthropy’.
3) Gates. A former entrepreneur who has transitioned into ‘philanthropy’ and is starting to exert power through his foundations.

Both Gates and Bezos share a unique issue of being the cash richest people in an inflationary monetary environment. The old money families have been in equities like property that derive rents since around 1930 when nations went off the gold standard, so inflation is good for them as it hikes up the value of their assets. Due to this, both Gates and Bezos have gotten divorced recently because it's the only way they can liquidate their stock without spooking the market. Since both their wives, even after the divorce, are foundation trustees, the wives liquidate the stock transferred to them in the settlement and pour the cash into the foundation, which then purchases property and social control through the grants system, funding research etc. There's a reason why Gates has been buying up all the farmland he can. In fact one of the best investments is farmland which hasn't had its soil destroyed yet by monsanto.

But Gates has soo much money he needs unique help protecting it from tax and transforming it into the kind of equities deriving inflation safe rents, as the latter are scarce and the best ones are already controlled by old money. Art is one way. But he needs access to the auction house appraisal network, which he can only do using the ‘right’ connections. Unless Gates plays ball, it could be very risky for him. Russian oligarchs for instance have been getting fucked recently when their art has been determined fraudulent, which actually enforced US sanctions on them. That's $150M gone in some cases, right on the spot, if Gates were to piss off the wrong people after storing his wealth inside something he knows nothign about. If he knows his place, the old money network will allow him the oppotunity to buy in, buy a $150M painting they will ensure the value of, which he can rent to a gallery that will protect it like a bank. Ten or twenty years later the next new money generation needs to get out of cash, perhaps Musk if he survives, and will buy it off Gates for $300M or whatever.

These art auction houses fit into a larger global banking secrecy jurisdiction network; made up of mostly former British colonies with its nexus within the City of London; which is available to anyone who can afford to pay. But access is very different for those trying to hide the larger amounts of wealth, which Gates and Bezos are. Ultimately these two have to resort to bearer documents, which are anonymous ownership papers only verifiable on physical presentation. Anyone new to this system, and new money is new to it, has no means for navigating the required traditions of established trust without the help of an insider. If they don't get insider help they will get scammed or ripped off.

For Gates, one of these insiders was Jeffrey Epstein. In 2013 for instance, Gates sought Epstein’s help, who was by then a convicted paedophile, in lobbying the Nobel peace prize selection committee, through an Icelandic former diplomat named Thorbjørn Jagland, who also happened to owe Epstein money ⁶. Things didn’t work out for Gates, as money doesn’t always equal power, and those atop Forbes wealthiest persons lists are generally those struggling to purchase real power while taking all the heat. Here’s a question answered implicitly in other pieces written on this site: Why would the worlds second wealthiest man think he had to go through a convicted paedophile for a shot at an international prize named after a family of old oil money Swedes? The New York Times isn’t deep diving into that without omitting half the facts, which leaves bootleg journalism to go where the blowhards only snorkel.

Gates also had the help of David Rockefeller Jr in building up his foundation, which replicates the Rockefeller model of raping the publics health. Rockefeller even placed Epstein on the board of ones of his Universities, so maybe there is a connection here no journalist on a salary really wants to look into.

In 2018 the Rockefeller Estate liquidated 1500 pieces of art for $835M through the Christie’s. That makes the average storage of value within this collection just over half a million dollars. The money went straight into a number of Rockefeller foundations making it a charitable donation, tax-free and purchasing not only clout within academic and scientific estates controlling the purse strings to research, but a philanthropic image further explored in some future official biography written by some queef with a proclivity for turtle-necks and silken scarfs. ³

It appears a sizeable portion of this money went into Rockefeller ocean conservation projects, similar to that of Ghislaine Maxwell’s TerraMar, though of a much grander scale. In the below interview David Rockefeller Jr mentions a partnership with google in the tracking of illegal fishing vessels.

This gives the impression international waters are being privatised through philanthropic conservation projects using satellite technology to track shipping routes to ensure certain areas of the ocean are cordoned off. There is certainly something fishy going on off shore. Perhaps they are rebuilding Atlantis. Ghislaine wasn't the only one with an ocean linked charity who’s been involved in a child sex trafficking ring. Look up a bizarre man called Adam Starchild, or Malcolm Willis McConahy, specifically his connections to Boy Scouts of America, the North Fox Island child murders involving Francis D Sheldon, and an organisation he operated called the Ocean Living Institute. ⁴

The 1500 piece Rockefeller collection, while record breaking, represents just a small part of the transacted wealth both Sotheby’s and Christie’s facilitate annually. It is also just a small part of the Rockefeller estate, some of the trinkets festooning the properties they needn’t ever sell. Just last month, June 2021, Christie’s banged the gavel over $427M worth of lot items ⁵. Sotheby’s did similar amounts, the two together constituting an exclusive international dark currency market akin to a cryptocurrency with a blockchain controlled by old money interests.

The link between these two auction houses and the old money families they serve as institutions is indirect but undeniable. Christie’s has two main auction houses. One located in London within the the 19th century residence of Napoleon’s nephew, Napoleon III, who was the first President of France. And another located within Rockefeller plaza New York. It’s currently owned and operated by a French fashion conglomerate controlled by Pinault family scion, François-Henri Pinault. The group purchased Christie's in 1998 and also owns high end fashion brands like Gucci through its Kering subsidiary. Sotheby’s was publicly listed briefly in 1977, before going through the mergers and acquisitions grinder to eventually end up, these days, in the hands of another French billionaire, Patrick Drahi, who purchased it in 2019. It has a long history which isn’t particularly interesting, but the Rothschild’s did own a 25% stake of it during the early 20th century ⁷. Behind the scenes it's probably still controlled, informally not through ownership, as a private consortium made up of such families this Patrick Drahi operates as an agent for. Though this is conjecture.

Unsurprisingly both Christie’s and Sotheby’s are in the Epstein blackbook with multiple points of contact.

Sotheby’s is currently in the process of handling the sale of Epstein’s New Mexico ranch, a delicate matter which requires a discrete touch for prospective buyers willing to pay a premium for the fully furnished red rooms, bespoke cast iron furnace to Moloch, or whatever the fuck it is jacking up the price of such a remote property ⁸. This ranch is almost as strange as Little St James Island, as it's essentially situated as an inland island itself, enveloped by a sea of properties all owned by the family of former New Mexico Governor, Bruce King ⁹. Back in 1995 Eileen Guggenheim actually took a group students from the New York Academy of Arts on a field trip here.¹⁰

An newly released blackbook of Jeffrey Epstein’s, supposedly from 1997 predating the one previously released by Gawker in 2015, lists Prince Michel of Yugoslavia as his real estate contact at Sotheby’s. Also listed is Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, who worked at Sotheby’s as a jewellery appraiser. Both are descendants of the House of Karađorđević, a monarchical Serbian dynasty. ^{11 12}

Epstein's auction house connections go on.

The Great-granddaughter of Winston Churchill and daughter of Richard Hambro, Clemetine Hambro, was working at Christie’s New York auction house when she made one business trip to Epstein’s ranch and one leisure trip to his Little St James island. ¹³

Then there's Heather Mann, a frequent flyer on the Lolita express alongside the notable Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who was working as an appraiser at Christie’s when she was hitched to Prince Andrew for a short period. ¹⁴

Barbara Guggenheim, a close relation to Eileen Guggenheim, was a New York art consultant who worked at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s. In 1988 she rorted Actor Sylvester Stallone for millions as his art consultant. Poor Stallone, not understanding how these things work, even tried to sue her, finding out pretty quickly she'd married hollywood lawyer Bert Fields for good reason. ¹⁵

There is also an ongoing investigation as part of a civil forfeiture suit brought against the Epstein Estate by the attorney generals office in the Virgin Islands into accounts Epstein held at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s. ¹⁶

The Musuem of Modern Art NY, or MoMa, appears to be some kind of elusive cultural club for the New York financial elite. Just going through the trustee’s list you find the surnames: Dubin, Black, Fink, Lauder, Bronfman, Rockefeller, Speyer, Pulitzer ¹⁷. They seem very fond of performance artist, Marina Abramović, who spends a great deal of her time working on new ways to trigger Christian plebs into believing there is a group of paedophile satanists running the world—which, is kind of true, though generally misguided in its characterisation. What else could a monotheist make of such things. You can hardly blame them for conflating the many branches of the Occult with the broad brush of Satan.

Now, this is a very abstract branch of historical speculation, so add the grain of salt, but there appears to be two main deities that commercial oligarchs have worshipped from before the Greek mystery schools obscured them into secret religious sects. They both appear to have originated, to the greatest extent, in the Canaanite cities of Babylon and Carthage as patron deities. One was the Whore of Babylon called Ishtar, the other a Baal(demon god, there are more than one) called Moloch in Carthage. Ishtar is known colloquially as the planet Venus, and Moloch Saturn. You will find references to both in all Western artforms, ancient and modern. Moloch was known as a bull, adopted by the Roman Cult of Mithras and carried into the present, broadly speaking, as the cult of the dying god, which took on many different forms. There is a tacit monument to ‘this bull’ on wall street, and it was even offered the monument of a child in the Moloch tradition. We’ll just call this a synchronicity and nothing else. The words ‘perhaps’ and ‘synchronicity’ being vital tools in the conspiracy theorist toolkit. You can thank Jung for the latter, whose great grandfather’s uncle, Johann Sigmund Jung(1745-1824) was, perhaps, a member of the Illuminati under the moniker Columella. Though if this is true, it's just another synchronicity of the coincidence theory, which like conspiracy theory, has the absolutist view everything is a coincidence as occum’s razor posits that the simplest theory is to have none. If you've read this far then you are already acquainted with a 15th century painting entitled, 'The Birth of Venus', which is a testament to the Greek depiction of Ishtar as Aphrodite. To the Greeks, the dying god(Moloch) was Dionysus, who was symbolised as the bull.

This kind of symbolism can be celebrated openly, inclusively alongside an unwitting public, so long as the symbolic substance is kept to a wink at those who know, while the form is mutated into the kind of grey area allowing pompous critics the breadth of interpretation to analyse such things, these days, through the post-modern framework they were indoctrinated with to get their degree. To them, the bull actually represents the ‘bullish’ nature of capitalism trampling everything in its path. And the little girl represents the progressive intersectionality of ideas standing up to it. Call it what you like, but the prophets who worship markets, the ‘bullish’ folk, what they see is a child offering. And they’ve been shovelling the future into the stoves of Moloch ever since his effigy was dropped off by an Italian in 1989 to preside over the coming booms and busts.

But modern art isn’t just about money laundering or tacit monuments to Canaanite deities, it's also about triggering the plebs. At this, Marina Abramovic is currently the best jester. Take this article, “Marina Abramovic Just Wants Conspiracy Theorists to Let Her Be”, prepared by the New York Times for metropolitan professional class consumption ¹⁸. The byline, “’I am an artist, not a Satanist,’ the performance artist said after an online outcry prompted Microsoft to take down a video of her. It’s not the first time she’s faced the accusation.”

See now technically Marina is right, because she isn’t a satanist, but her performance art is consciously influenced by certain forms of occultist symbolism and ritual. However, this doesn’t stop her from amusingly leaning into the image of 'Satanic priestess of the devil worshipping pedophile elite' by posing with a member of the Rothschild family before the painting, Satan summoning his Legions.

The NYTimes article goes on, “Ms. Abramovic said she was most hurt by how the conspiracy theorists took images from her work and twisted the meaning to bolster their case. . .Conspiracy theorists[that's me!] have even used some of Ms. Abramovic’s oldest, most renowned works to bolster their case, including one in which she lay down in a flaming five-pointed star, and another where she carved that shape into her stomach. Ms. Abramovic said the stars were meant to invoke a Communist symbol she had grown up with in Yugoslavia, not a satanic pentagram" ¹⁸. The star she carved into her stomach was for a piece called, lips of thomas, which displays, of course, at the Guggenheim Musuem:

Oh Marina, you know what you did you cheeky witch. As can be seen above, the fifth point of the star she carved into her stomach is made from blood dripping down toward to her pussy. This would make it a downward pointing five pointed star, otherwise known as an inverted pentagram. This symbol had been associated with the Templar deity Baphomet since at least the 19th century by occulists, and is called the sigil of Baphomet. The Communist Star, or Red Star, is an upward pointing five pointed star. Though in her defense she probably does believe things are as above, as they are below.

Of course, to the educated post-modernist—who wears a scarf which dangles down upon one crossed arm, their other raised with a wine glass cradled in a limp grasp as if to toast themself—this naked woman carving an inverted pentagram into her stomach, and bleeding down into her pussy, is clearly demonstrating the harrowing debasement of human rights suffered within the Communist bloc. After all, she did grow up within the Soviet buffer fringe, so if the biography fits and the synopsis does aswell, she simply must've got her stars crossed. And we could go into Marina’s spirit cooking adventures for with MoMa, but I wouldn’t want to touch on something best left to the little green frogs, who while a spastic bunch, are also often ahead of the curve.

The art game is a strange cruel world. I don’t pretend to understand it fully, and no doubt hold some misconceptions for whats going on. The reality behind the mirage of its sophistication and presentation could be anything from mundane corruption to something so dark it can only be conceptualised, sanely, within the comforting numbness comedy provides.

“The men inside the auction room wore black mohair and had pale, cruel faces. They watched her come in, trying each to conceal his thoughts. Loren Passerine, on his podium, hovered like a puppet-master, his eyes bright, his smile practised and relentless. He stared at her, smiling, as if saying, I’m surprised you actually came. Oedipa sat alone, toward the back of the room, looking at the napes of necks, trying to guess which one was her target, her enemy, perhaps her proof. An assistant closed the heavy door on the lobby windows and the sun. She heard the lock snap shut; the sound echoed a moment. Passerine spread his arms in a gesture that seemed to belong to the priesthood of some remote culture; perhaps to a descending angel. The auctioneer cleared his throat. Oedipa settled back, to await the crying of lot 49.”

Refs

1. https://pr.princeton.edu/news/03/q2/0627-trustees.htm

2. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/01/pilot-prince-andrew-jeffrey-epsteins-plane-fbi

3. https://www.christies.com/features/Rockefeller-sales-final-report-9206-3.aspx

4. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/jeffrey-epstein-north-fox-island-francis-shelden-2019-8. There is much more to this though. I hope to eventually cover it when I've exhausted my current preoccupations.

5. https://www.christies.com/en/results?month=6

6. https://www.dn.no/magasinet/dokumentar/jeffrey-epstein/thorbjorn-jagland/terje-rod-larsen/bill-gates-and-jeffrey-epstein-met-with-nobel-committee-chair/2-1-885834

7. https://youtu.be/hhaihcUNAnE?t=975

8. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/jeffrey-epstein-new-mexico-ranch-for-sale-7

9. https://www.coreysdigs.com/trafficking/is-jeffrey-epsteins-zorro-ranch-insulated/

10. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/epstein-ranch-art-students-1760265

11. https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epstein-other-little-black-book-2021-6 (https://archive.is/lvUrV - paywall bypass)

12. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20973204-jeffrey-epsteins-other-little-black-book-redacted

13. https://www.tatler.com/article/princess-dianas-bridesmaid-clementine-clemmie-hambro-jeffrey-epstein-private-island-private-jet

14. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12254410.dukes-date-introduced-by-his-wife/

15. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-12-27-ca-1198-story.html

16. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/christie-s-and-sotheby-s-ordered-to-disclose-dealings-with-the-late-sex-offender-jeffrey-epstein

17. https://www.moma.org/about/trustees

18. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/arts/design/marina-abramovic-satanist-conspiracy-theory.html